If you choose to connect to Love, you will be challenged. You will be asked to face your fears. You will be asked to be humbled. And then you will be lifted by the wings of angels who are ready to help you fly because you take yourself lightly. This is the promise of Love. ~ Mastin Kipp. 

Happy Sunday!

I am becoming a better Lover.  <3
In my everyday earthly life I find myself taking actions that are loving to myself and to others.  I just feel the change and I have been noticing more and more its effects.
I notice it in the walks down the corridors at work where I make eye contact with each person and say hello.  I even found one busy day this week I was distracted and the first person I passed said hello to me, I shifted my focus and greeted the next few people – with each step feeling lighter as the LOVE became my focus once again.
I observe myself breaking out of my quiet introverted behaviors.  I always lived with thoughts filled with good intensions about helping other but if I was unsure of my effort being offered or the others’ acceptance of my act I would keep my thoughts to myself.  I find I am taking the action to offer the help.
Last weekend I sold some old toys at a garage sale with my sister Barbara and niece Lauren.  Both of them are going through big house moves this month and are under a lot of stress.  When we finished our sale there were things that were left un-sold.  Neither lady wanted to take the remaining things home with them.  Half of me wanted to just leave with my remaining stuff to get rid of to a charity later.  The growing, more Loving half of me chose to get involved and figure it out.  This may seem like a minor story but it was a milestone for me.  I wasn’t sure but thought that the Salvation Army Store might take all the items we had left.  I took the initiative to check out their donation list on the internet and found that they would.  And then the real miracle occurred, I made a call to find out the store was still open for drop offs.  I have always had such an aversion to telephone calls (or I told myself I had an aversion to calling) but I did it.  Peter and I dropped of the items with no trouble at all.
The thought of “do the right thing” has just been central in my mind this week.  I am busy and tired but I know I can do it and do it right.
I have also been LOVING me by trusting myself to say what I need to say.  I find that I am doing a better job at saying what I am thinking.  Last weekend when I was trying to figure out the trip to the Salvation Army my temptation was to just remain silent and not say anything in case I didn’t want to help.  Instead I spoke about what I was thinking and my concerns that maybe it wouldn’t work out.  I spoke my truth, perhaps people would be disappointed, perhaps it would work out, I accepted that my part was to be open and honest, and that was right.
I am finding it easier to do and say what I need to do for myself and, at the same time, it seems to be easier to do for others.
Back on June 9th I wrote about the dogma of not speaking if you can’t say anything nice.  I think I am finding my way to expressing my self assertively without attack on the other.  The means to achieving this is TRUTH – so simple.  I recognize that my thoughts and words come from my perspective and what I know.  When I am wrong or my perspective is changed by the conversation I say so.   People may say things I don’t like or don’t agree with but now I understand that they may be mistaken in their words but they have good intensions, or they may attack verbally out of fear of something lacking within themselves.
Joel Osteen spoke this morning of destroying the yoke that has been our burden, that limiting thought that we have placed over our lives and has limited us.  His words helped to clarify this change in me that I am observing.  I think that the yoke was destroyed successfully when I wrote back on June 9th about only saying something nice.  For me this meant just saying those things that society expected me to say, never what I really thought, felt, or wanted – just being the ‘good girl’.
Holding back was also safe as I avoided the embarrassment of saying the wrong thing; when you have no self esteem the shame feels mortifying for years and years.  This makes me think of the teachings of the Buddha.  His follower Thich Nhat Hanh said the following on suffering.  “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
This I now know: I have faith in my words and in my actions; if I make a mistake I will do better the next time.
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”  ~ Buddha